


Old Blood

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Famous Wayne Family, Gen, Gotham City - Freeform, I don't even know how to tag this, If you want to know what the Rogues think of the Wayne family this is for you, Implied Violence, Lex Luthor hate, One Shot, The Rogues Gallery (Batman), Weird Gotham City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23983990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: If you like:- Gotham's Rogues- Clannish/insular POVs- Gotham City pride- Seeing the Waynes from the unwitting Rogues' POV- Bagging on Lex Luthor- Back alley politics- Alfred PennyworthThen this fic is for you.
Comments: 90
Kudos: 687





	Old Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is or how to promote it. It took me two hour to write, start to finish, and came with its title. I am baffled. And if anyone has points to add to the summary, let me know. No one's going to read this and I am at a loss.

Gotham did not take kindly to the new. Its ways were war tested and battle hardened, its lines of division ancient and stained with old blood. Old families ruled its boardrooms—the Waynes, the Elliots, the Dumas, the Crownes, the Kanes. Old families ruled its streets—the Falcones, the Maronis, the Keanes, the Gilzean, the Szabo. And old nightmares flooded its nights—Riddler, Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Two Face, Joker.

As a Cobblepot, Oswald sat perfectly hinged in the intersection of all three. His family might not have been one of the original Five, but the Cobblepots were old money, and they circulated as ruthlessly in galas and penthouse offices as they did in backroom deals and side street massacres. And of his three birthrights, one might think that the last was of least value. After all, old money was unobtainable to those who didn’t already have it. Street cred might be easy to come by in other cities, but not in Gotham, a place of untold horrors. And those same horrors, one might be excused to believe, would make it easy to climb through the ranks of its worst fears. Simply throw on an odd costume, choose an obscene schtick, and raise hell.

Oswald Cobblepot knew better. The kings and queens of Gotham—the Rogues, as they were collectively, vulgarly known—were an exclusive set. Beneath them teemed an ever-changing sea of lessers, each jockeying for position and sinking just as quickly, but the Rogues rode the cresting wave. They _made_ the cresting wave. They had each claimed their respective thrones by virtue of their crimes, yes, the lengths they were willing to go to and the blood they were willing to spill, but also through sheer longevity.

They were not friends, oh no, no more than the crime families of Gotham were _friends_. They fought each other, backstabbing and backbiting, each willing to haul themselves over the bloodied corpse of the next to come out on top. But with years spent in each others’ orbit—as collaborators, as sworn enemies, as partners, as mutual betrayers—came familiarity and a modicum of respect.

The Rogues of Gotham might not like each other, but they knew each other, and they knew each had reached a certain standard to earn their place.

It was not a static group. They were forever rotating in and out of prison, in and out of Arkham, in and out of devilish schemes and dark shadows, in and out of presumed graves. And, from time to time, a new player would enter the scene and, against all odds, stick. Bane had been one of those, that hulking behemoth, as had Black Mask. So it paid to keep an eye on the new players, even though the majority rose and fell without making so much as a ripple.

Oswald hated babysitting, as he thought of it. Much of the time, the fresh chum would surface itself, gravitating toward whichever Rogue he or she most wanted to impress. As a Cobblepot, Oswald tended to hear from the scheming businessmen and the ornithologically inclined. The latter tended to be enraging, too focused on the schtick to commit, while the former tended to be boring. Unhappy, restless middle-aged men who saw _Wolf of Wall Street_ one time too many and thought all it took to make it in Gotham was a willingness to pick on widows and orphans and do vulgar things with one’s first hundred million. As if a hundred million was worth anything at all.

(Oswald had been glad—glad!—when Bruce Wayne had routed Lex Luthor from Gotham. Vulgar twit of a man, smelling of new money and coconut oil. Oswald _hated_ new money. For all they were obstreperous fools, give him a Wayne or a Kane any day of the week. They were old money, and they were _Gotham_ old money. Let Metropolis keep its trash.)

Oswald’s latest little hanger-on was an up-and-comer named Lawson. Lawson was old money, but lost money, his family having fallen into disgrace and disrepair back in the 90s. Now Lawrence “Lance” Lawson was attempting to claw his way back into the Gotham banquet by attacking his betters. He had managed, with moderate success, to become a burr to the Crownes and a few smaller empires, while at the same time building back alley support in the darker corners of the city.

What Lawson needed was capital, and capital was what Cobblepot had refused to give him. Still the man called from time to time, to brag about vague and ornate plans or gloat about his most recent success. He wasn’t a Rogue, but he also wasn’t yet in Blackgate, which put him a step ahead of the rest.

Oswald Cobblepot had last heard from Lawrence Lawson over a month ago, when the latter had boasted of turning his attention toward the Wayne family. Cobblepot, not a religious man, had flicked his fingers in a sarcastic sign of the cross and wished the man well. He would need it. Oswald had expected to hear news shortly of Lawson’s arrest, foiled by Bruce Wayne’s fabled dumb luck or by Batman’s interference.

Instead, there had been silence.

But now it was Friday night, and his phone was ringing.

The benefit of being new was a fresh take, a new perspective, a different approach. The very, very smart and the very, very ruthless could find a way to make themselves stick. The rest might provide a learning experience or, at the very least, some entertainment.

Oswald wondered which this would be.

“Oswald Cobblepot.”

“Cobblepot, you old crow, I’ve done it.” Lawson had a voice like one of Quinzel’s hyenas. Oswald pulled the phone away from his ear.

“Done what?” he asked from a safe distance.

“What you old fools could never manage!” Another wild bray of a laugh. “I’ve bled money from Bruce Wayne, and I’ve kept it. No Bat, no cops. Just $50 million and more on its way.”

One eyebrow rose over Oswald’s monocle. “Did you now?”

“Your kind’s too complacent, too stuck in its ways!” Lawson roared. “No vision, and you overlook the obvious. I did my homework, looking into all the times you so-called Rogues targeted Bruce Wayne, targeted his children. Every time, you came to ruin.”

That was a sore subject. Oswald’s teeth tightened around his cigar. Bruce Wayne had the protection of his name and the respect of his father’s money, but he was an idiot through and though. Yet no scheme formed against him could prosper. Whether by masked interference or divine good luck, nothing could touch the Wayne family, at least not for long. Thomas and Martha’s murder and Bruce’s brat’s death overseas had been the closest Oswald had ever seen anything come to sticking, and both, by all accounts, had been sheer chance.

“You overlooked the obvious,” Lawson repeated. “The old butler. Practically one of the family. Obscenely well-paid, but with none of the familial protection.”

Oswald found himself suddenly interested. He sat forward in his chair. “Lawson, am I to believe that you—“

“Kidnapped Alfred Pennyworth!” Lawson confirmed.

Oswald was forced to yank the phone away from his ear again, but just as quickly began to lean back in. “Did you now.”

“One elderly servant and you all missed him. It was a cinch to snatch him up. Smack the old geezer around a bit, make some threats, and he transferred the money over sweet as you please.” Lawson’s smugness was fairly dripping through the receiver. “Now all I have to do is take a photo with proof of life and I can ransom him to Wayne all over again.”

“And dump his body in the river after?” Oswald guessed.

“Or a back alley or dumpster somewhere, who cares,” Lawson snorted, missing the dry tone of Cobblepot’s voice. “Fifty mil from the old man, ten times that from Wayne, and I have enough startup funds to get down to _real_ business.”

Oswald’s mouth twitched. “Let me guess. You attempted to grab a child first.”

A hesitation on the other end. “I considered it. Nothing ever seemed to line up. Old man just seemed easier.”

Those Wayne brats were slippery little leeches. Having them pass through your fingers without being bitten was lucky.

Lawrence Lawson, it appeared, was not a lucky man.

Oswald sat back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “Did you run a background check on Pennyworth before you took him?”

“You mean his military background?” Lawson snorted. “I found it. Decades ago, and wasted stepping into his father’s shoes to serve the Waynes. He fought, but he was no trouble.”

The benefit of fresh blood was the rare gem who could find a new angle. But the entertainment of fresh blood was the common pebble who thought they found a new angle, but instead was trodding old and mine-filled ground. Lawson was not the first to go after Alfred T.C. Pennyworth. He was not even the first to surface the old man’s military background, though most looked only as far as the Pennyworth family’s generational service to the Waynes and assumed he was of the same stock.

“Larry,” Oswald said, ignoring the grunt of displeasure on the other end, “you call us old fools for missing the obvious, but what you young bucks fail to consider is that nothing was missed at all. There’s a reason we do not target the Wayne butler, and it is not in deference to his greying head.”

“I told you, I have the money already. I—”

“You have the money, and all he must do now is open your laptop or turn on your app and transfer it back.” Oswald reached for the silver tin on his desk, lifted the lid, and plucked out an oil-slicked anchovy. “You incited attention by going after the little ones and failing. Better for you if you had just committed and taken your lumps. You would be in jail by now, true, but you’d be out in fifteen years with good behavior.”

“You’re not listening, you daffy—”

“Is Mr. Pennyworth where you left him?” Oswald interrupted. He pinned the receiver between his cheek and shoulder to listen while he removed the cigar from his mouth.

“Wh—“

“Is he. Where. You left him,” Oswald repeated slowly, as if speaking to a very small, very stupid child. “Check your camera. I know you have one trained on him.”

There was silence on the other end, and then a strangled cry of outrage. “He’s—How—Where—”

“We _old fools_ learned long ago the rules of this city.” Oswald paused dramatically to slurp down the anchovy and lick his lips clean before continuing, “One cannot survive in Gotham until one does. You have failed in that regard, Lawson, and so you will not survive.”

Oswald placed the cigar between his teeth, mouth curving into a vicious rictus grin around it. “And here is the rule regarding Bruce Wayne’s old butler, Lawson, your final departing lesson from a Rogue to a floating scrap of chum.”

There was nothing on the other end but breathing, raging and gasping. Oswald’s monocle glinted as he leaned forward against his desk and breathed into the phone.

“You do not have Alfred Pennyworth, Lawson. He has you.”

**Author's Note:**

> There is a not-insignificant chance that Larry Lawson is dead now.


End file.
